Badly fitting BCD/New diver figuring out what questions to ask

[jowe]

Not a big deal, you got a lesson in the consequences of a sloppy bc. If you had 100 more dives, you would be better able to balance a sloppy bc, but I find them maddening. So get a smaller bc and see how it goes.

The smaller BCD and more weight helped a vast amount today, thanks. Yesterday really threw me off though. On one hand I appreciate the lesson in the safety of the pool. On the other it was a big deal to me and really walloped my confidence. I'm not young enough to feel "invincible" so it was a rough start (other things didn't go well so it all snowballed). At least I am old enough to know ego just gets in the way, to be grateful to learn from mistakes, regroup and to keep going.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

@jowe, I see you’re in Monterey. I’m up in Santa Rosa and dive Monterey once in a great while.
So, greetings bro!
What shop are you certifying through just out of curiosity? Are they going to do ocean OW check out dives at the Breakwater?
Another question I have, do you have any skin diving or freediving experience beyond snorkelling? Or are you putting all this stuff on for the first time including wetsuit, hood, mask/snorkel, fins, etc. and then on top of that the whole S.C.U.B.A. unit including BCD. If so, then I can see it being a lot to deal with all at once, especially where we dive.
The reason I ask is because there is a freediving culture in California mostly for spearing and abalone up north. I was wondering if you were involved with any of that at all. Freediving helps later with scuba, but if you didn’t do any of that then I guess it’s a moot point.
Best advice I can give you is to relax and concentrate on your breathing. Slow deep full breaths. Don’t let them over weight you either. When you guys get in the ocean for the first time and you make your way out to the instructors float tube and he want’s you to drop, you should be able to dump all the air out of your BC with a full tank and float at eye level. You can then exhale to get a little heavy and then flip over forwards and fin down to the line. If you require a bunch or air in the BC to stay on the surface and as soon as you dump it and you sink like a rock then you are overweighted.
When you get to about 10’ or 15’ the wetsuit will begin to compress and you can add a little air to the BC to remain neutral. Do quick short shots. Stay neutral throughout the dive. See if you can hover right above the bottom and keep your knees off the sand. That would be pretty !damn impressive! if you could do all your skills hovering 3’ off the sand and keep your feet up so you don’t muck up the bottom and blow out the visibility, It’s not hard to do.
Most of all, have fun!
That’s what diving is suppose to be all about!

 

[jowe]

@jowe, I see you’re in Monterey. I’m up in Santa Rosa and dive Monterey once in a great while.
So, greetings bro!

Nice! Apparently all the stars and some unicorns aligned today and there was 100' visibility in Monterey Bay.... I didn't know that was even ever a thing. Hope that happens again in my lifetime! Oh and totally no big deal, I'm a she... Jo... I know, totally unhelpful name if you can't see me! I completely appreciate the friendly greeting, @Eric Sedletzky and super helpful replies.

What shop are you certifying through just out of curiosity?

Aquarius Dive Shop

Are they going to do ocean OW check out dives at the Breakwater?

Yes!

Another question I have, do you have any skin diving or freediving experience beyond snorkelling?

Warm water snorkeling of the 'duck down 20-30 feet look around for a bit and pop back up' persuasion and that was eons ago. I loved that though. Proper free diving looks amazing. One day...

Or are you putting all this stuff on for the first time including wetsuit, hood, mask/snorkel, fins, etc. and then on top of that the whole S.C.U.B.A. unit including BCD. If so, then I can see it being a lot to deal with all at once, especially where we dive.

Yep - the 7mm suit, hood, 5mm gloves and all are new to me and an experience by themselves. It's a whole lot of buoyancy, and unbalanced feeling weight distribution. I know I'll get better at compensating for those with experience, but for now, you're right, it's a lot.

The reason I ask is because there is a freediving culture in California mostly for spearing and abalone up north. I was wondering if you were involved with any of that at all. Freediving helps later with scuba, but if you didn’t do any of that then I guess it’s a moot point.

Gotcha. I'm not a hunter - just loved the ease and freedom of seeing life underwater and the best moments of all, when they decided to come see me!

Best advice I can give you is to relax and concentrate on your breathing. Slow deep full breaths. Don’t let them over weight you either. When you guys get in the ocean for the first time and you make your way out to the instructors float tube and he want’s you to drop, you should be able to dump all the air out of your BC with a full tank and float at eye level. You can then exhale to get a little heavy and then flip over forwards and fin down to the line. If you require a bunch or air in the BC to stay on the surface and as soon as you dump it and you sink like a rock then you are overweighted.

Excellent to know what to expect, thank you.

When you get to about 10’ or 15’ the wetsuit will begin to compress and you can add a little air to the BC to remain neutral. Do quick short shots. Stay neutral throughout the dive. See if you can hover right above the bottom and keep your knees off the sand. That would be pretty !damn impressive! if you could do all your skills hovering 3’ off the sand and keep your feet up so you don’t muck up the bottom and blow out the visibility, It’s not hard to do.

Visibility is generally low enough, I don't want to make it worse! This is so helpful. I do need to slow things right down. Just occurred to me on reading this...I don't drive cars slowly, but I do drive as smoothly as I can, gentle on the controls, avoid sharp movements, aware of everything around me so I can be light on the brakes and spare those riding with me terror or whiplash. I need to translate that to diving, clearly (minus the lead foot).

Most of all, have fun!
That’s what diving is suppose to be all about!

Cheers to that with a bonus of meeting some pretty nice people from what I can tell - though perhaps diving brings out the best in a lot of folk

 

[Kimela]

Honestly, when trying on a BC for fit you really need to have it on a tank. I recently bought a Mares so I'd have a backup, and didn't try it with a tank in it because 'it fit great'. I waited too long to return it and THEN put it on a tank and hoisted it up. The fit is terrible. I'll be listing a Mares here someday. Learn from my mistake.

When you're ready to purchase a BC take a look at the Women's Perspectives forum. Lots of great info about getting a BC that fits properly.

 

[jowe]

Honestly, when trying on a BC for fit you really need to have it on a tank. I recently bought a Mares so I'd have a backup, and didn't try it with a tank in it because 'it fit great'. I waited too long to return it and THEN put it on a tank and hoisted it up. The fit is terrible. I'll be listing a Mares here someday. Learn from my mistake.

When you're ready to purchase a BC take a look at the Women's Perspectives forum. Lots of great info about getting a BC that fits properly.

Which makes perfect sense now you say it. If I'd put it on with the tank, even I might have figured out to question how it felt. Then again, maybe I wouldn't have - I was trusting someone who I assumed was an expert and things feel very different in water than out.

Thanks for the forum pointer - Like everyone else, I'd love to get it right first time with the bigger purchases at least.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

@jowe
The other thing I should mention is that depending on what the shop uses for rental tanks, they could be aluminum 80 cubic foot cylinders. Those are floaty when they start to empty out to the tune of about 3 lbs. positive. This is lightness that you have to make up with added ballast in your weight integrated BC.
If they have high pressure steel 100 cubic foot tanks then that problem is minimized since they end up a few lbs. negative in the water. That is weight that can be removed, yay!
The only reason shops in our area use aluminum tanks for rentals is to save money on the large fleets they have to have. But Aluminum 80’s are not that great for cold water diving.

One last thing while we’re discussing buoyancy.
Perfect buoyancy in scuba diving means that at the end of a full length dive with your tank down to near empty, or your desired finishing pressure, you should be able to hold your 15’ safety stop with an empty BC (all air out) and control your stop/buoyancy with your breathing alone. In many cases this means incrementally removing a pound or two of weight each dive until you can achieve this goal. Once you get this dialed in then you have a base line. Write all this down in your log book/dive journal including what wetsuit, the BC, the tank you’re using, etc. because if any gear changes it could change your numbers. Take notes!

Now, nobody expects you to have this dialed in by the end of open water, and a lot of instructors do not know this formula, or if they do they don’t have time to teach it to you in detail, and also because technically it’s another cla$$.
If it so happens that you get super close to perfect buoyancy or hit it dead on during OW then I’d say you scored! But most of the time they will purposely overweight you so that they can plant you on the bottom to make their job easier by keeping you pinned in place to do skills and so you don’t float away. The problem is that students keep thinking this is normal and continue to dive overweighted, which depending on the degree of overweighting, can be very dangerous.

BTW, I’m a Carmel native, born and raised.
I love the Monterey Peninsula!

 

[jowe]

@jowe
The other thing I should mention is that depending on what the shop uses for rental tanks, they could be aluminum 80 cubic foot cylinders. Those are floaty when they start to empty out to the tune of about 3 lbs. positive. This is lightness that you have to make up with added ballast in your weight integrated BC.
If they have high pressure steel 100 cubic foot tanks then that problem is minimized since they end up a few lbs. negative in the water. That is weight that can be removed, yay!
The only reason shops in our area use aluminum tanks for rentals is to save money on the large fleets they have to have. But Aluminum 80’s are not that great for cold water diving.

One last thing while we’re discussing buoyancy.
Perfect buoyancy in scuba diving means that at the end of a full length dive with your tank down to near empty, or your desired finishing pressure, you should be able to hold your 15’ safety stop with an empty BC (all air out) and control your stop/buoyancy with your breathing alone. In many cases this means incrementally removing a pound or two of weight each dive until you can achieve this goal. Once you get this dialed in then you have a base line. Write all this down in your log book/dive journal including what wetsuit, the BC, the tank you’re using, etc. because if any hear changes it could change your numbers. Take notes!

Now, nobody expects you to have this dialed in by the end of open water, and a lot of instructors do not know this formula, or if they do they don’t have time to teach it to you in detail, and also because technically it’s another cla$$.
If it so happens that you get super close to perfect buoyancy or hit it dead on during OW then I’d say you scored! But most of the time they will purposely overweight you so that they can plant you on the bottom to make their job easier by keeping you pinned in place to do skills and so you don’t float away. The problem is that students keep thinking this is normal and continue to dive overweighted, which depending on the degree of overweighting, can be very dangerous.

BTW, I’m a Carmel native, born and raised.
I love the Monterey Peninsula!

Thanks for taking the time to share this. Getting buoyancy right seems a fun but more importantly very necessary challenge. I take a lot of notes (helps me remember things and serves as backup memory if needed) and am all about lists. This is how I showed up at the pool at 5:45am with everything I needed (not a natural morning person is a laughable understatement).

It's hard not to love Monterey Peninsula - though having it/Carmel as your home (it always will feel that way even when you're elsewhere) is extra special. Moved here almost 6 years ago... can't believe its been that long, partially because I don't think the novelty will ever wear off

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

It's hard not to love Monterey Peninsula - though having it/Carmel as your home (it always will feel that way even when you're elsewhere) is extra special. Moved here almost 6 years ago... can't believe its been that long, partially because I don't think the novelty will ever wear off

I grew up down there in the 60’s. My dad was a famous architect on the peninsula and designed many very high end modernist homes in Carmel, Monterey, Pebble Beach, Big Sur, etc.
A quick Google search for Marcel Sedletzky would take you right to it.
I remember my parents always complaining about what a damned tourist trap it was but I liked it, still do. We left in 1973 so it’s been a long time. It pulled a chunk out of my heart when we left so I guess I’m still attached. I would love to live there again some day but I’d have to figure out a way to get rich to be able to do it! So for now I just make the three hour trip south and do a day trip.

 

[johndiver999]

The smaller BCD and more weight helped a vast amount today, thanks. Yesterday really threw me off though. On one hand I appreciate the lesson in the safety of the pool. On the other it was a big deal to me and really walloped my confidence. I'm not young enough to feel "invincible" so it was a rough start (other things didn't go well so it all snowballed). At least I am old enough to know ego just gets in the way, to be grateful to learn from mistakes, regroup and to keep going.

You are just taking lessons. You have dozens if not hundreds of mistakes, challenges, or problems to experience underwater, so don’t put much weight on one bad day in the pool. Plus it sounds like you learned another valuable lesson: problems snowball and the effect is cumulative and if you don’t get the issues resolved things snowball into something more challenging than you might expect.

 

[jowe]

I grew up down there in the 60’s. My dad was a famous architect on the peninsula and designed many very high end modernist homes in Carmel, Monterey, Pebble Beach, Big Sur, etc.
A quick Google search for Marcel Sedletzky would take you right to it.
I remember my parents always complaining about what a damned tourist trap it was but I liked it, still do. We left in 1973 so it’s been a long time. It pulled a chunk out of my heart when we left so I guess I’m still attached. I would love to live there again some day but I’d have to figure out a way to get rich to be able to do it! So for now I just make the three hour trip south and do a day trip.

How very cool. I appreciate good design, beauty and function are a powerful pairing. I do like Mid-Century Modern inspired homes and a lot of modern architecture. Have watched an awful lot of Grand Designs episodes over the years. Your dad certainly had a delightful setting for his fascinating work. I have affection for tourist traps having grown up in one (Windsor, UK). You live somewhere worth visiting and the shifting energy, and hopefully diversity, of such places can be fun. That said, some of the "distracted driving", can get old!

Bay Area house prices... yeah...may we all win a lottery so we can afford scuba and a home upgrade!